


We're One (But We're Not the Same)

by Jaylee



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Secret Empire (Marvel), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, deals with themes of depression, or recognizes within himself, spoilers for Secret Empire Omega, spoilers for Waid's upcoming Cap run, though it is not something Steve gives name to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 08:51:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12128904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaylee/pseuds/Jaylee
Summary: Steve goes on a journey through America to restore the reputation of Captain America (or die trying). Tony knows Steve too well to leave him to it.





	We're One (But We're Not the Same)

‘The coffee is shitty,’ he thought, more out of habit than feeling, as he stared out the window of a rustic café out onto a highway seldom used. Not that it mattered. His brain didn’t linger much on what he put in his mouth. His breakfast of eggs, toast and fruit might as well have been dirt, saw dust and twigs and he’d probably not know the difference. He ate when his enhanced metabolism screamed for sustenance and he slept only when exhausted enough to pass out from it. He didn’t pause to think about either as he did them. No point in it.

But these habits kept the nightmares at bay. Kept him alive to do what needed to be done. That was the only thing that mattered, really.

_“You’re not taking care of yourself, Steve,”_ the voice said.

Steve snorted. Yeah, well…

_“Didn’t you always say that a healthy body was the first line of defense,”_ the voice continued persistently, sounding more like Tony Stark every time his brain conjured it, and Steve just shook his head.

“Maybe I don’t want to be defended,” he whispered, lest the bored waitress heard him and mistook him for speaking to her.

_“Perhaps I’m the one who wants you defended, then,”_ Tony-voice said, a touch obstinate.

Figured that a figment of his own imagination would be obstinate. Wouldn’t want to hear laid back voices, would he? He wouldn’t know what to do with it. If he was going to go crazy at least he’d go out annoyed.

Steve laughed, broken and hollow, a wisp of wind escaping what felt like a perpetually clogged throat.

“Yeah, well, you’re not here, and when you do finally get back, it’s probably best you use that energy taking care of yourself and the rest of our friends,” Steve announced, staring down into his mug.

It wasn’t a question of whether Tony would come back. Steve could not conceive of a world without Tony in it. Therefore the potential of Tony’s presence remained as steady as the sunrise.

It made Steve feel better, as much as he could feel anything, to envision a world where Tony would wake up miraculously, none the worse for wear, and continue on doing the superhero schtick and protecting people while Steve tried his best figure out what the world needed him to be, if anything. Speaking of which…

He looked at his plate contemptuously, no desire to force another bite. His mother, and the ghost of the Great Depression past, present and future, would be appalled at the waste, but then there were a lot of events recently that his mother would disapprove of, beginning with sins committed by a man wearing Steve’s face while Steve, himself, was off trapped in lala land, so what was one more thing to add to the list.

He probably should eat more, he knew. The serum required easily three times as much as what had been placed before him before he’d eaten the meager portion of it that he had. But he didn’t _want_ to.

So he didn’t.

What he wanted to do was find a way to be useful. And, failing that, do something so physically strenuous he couldn’t even _think_.

He pushed himself up slowly, his muscles aching. Probably should have gotten more sleep last night. Probably shouldn’t have run for three hours this morning, before even the gods and shadows awoke and until his lungs had screamed. But, well…

He signaled the waitress to come with the check, and to her credit she came closer to him than most did these days to give it to him. Brave soul.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, leaving a sizable tip.

Always tuck cash away for a rainy day and have a spare passport ready, SHIELD had taught him. Steve was going to use his savings to save the world. In any way that he could. Or die trying.

_“You’ve already saved it a million times over,”_ Tony-voice announced, ever persistent.

Steve shrugged, pushing his way out of a dirty glass door.

“And yet it never seems to be out of peril, does it?” he asked the sky. “But first it must know that we won’t shirk. I won’t let what happened to me effect the perception of the rest of you by association. Gotta restore the faith, then I’ll sleep.”

_“And eat,”_ the voice added.

“Oh let it rest,” Steve replied. “How is it you can nag me from a coma?”

* * *

 

The building had collapsed with people stuck inside it and Steve was doing his best to help get to them.

He didn’t know what city he was in, didn’t really look at the sign he had passed on the way in. Didn’t matter anyway.

“You should wear this to prevent any of the stuff floating around from getting into your lungs,” a concerned worker insisted, trying to hand him a paper white mouth guard.

“Serum protects my lungs,” he grunted, hefting a block of cement and sadness.

“I’ve got to get me some of that,” the worker mumbled, turning away from Steve.

_“Lies do not become you, Steven,”_ Tony-voice said, _“you may heal faster and go longer without air, but your lungs still need protecting.”_

“Don’t much care,” Steve said, and he moved on to the next piece of rubble.

* * *

 

The news was full of nothing but rebuilding. The rebuild of Las Vegas. The rebuild of government. The rebuild of morale. His friends and acquaintances were doing everything they could to help with it all, of course they were. They were good people.

Steve let the television run in this room until the evening news stopped, and when it did he found another station to watch that was still running it, completely ignoring the feeling  of a frog in his throat and the acid bubbling in his stomach like lava in Vesuvius.

Somewhere around too late to be early and too early to be late he got up to splash cold water on his face.

He stopped short of eyeing his reflection in the mirror afterward, he couldn’t bring himself to look.

_“I happen to like your face,”_ the voice said.

“Yeah, well, you’re probably the only one,” Steve replied wearily, eyeing the motel room bed like it was a medieval torture device.

At least he’d stopped a robbery that morning, and had a bullet graze at his side, hastily bandaged and sprayed with antiseptic from his own first aid kit that afternoon, to show for it... so there was that.

* * *

 

_‘How are you doing, Steve?’_ The weekly text from Bucky asked.

_‘I’m doing just fine. America is as beautiful as she ever was,’_ he typed back, thought about it, then included a smiling emoji at the last minute.

God bless texting. Steve had never been more grateful for the invention of the cell phone than he was in that moment.

_“Bucky would so hate that you’re lying to him,”_ ‘Tony’ lectured. _“And the emoji is a dead giveaway, by the way. Have you ever even used one before?_

“I’m not lying,” Steve snapped, “this state, New… Arizona-Texas-ico, is beautiful and I’m still here, aren’t I? And I never really saw the point of them until now.”

_“Okay, so it’s not Bucky you’re lying to, it’s yourself,”_ the voice announced.

Steve was too busy worrying that smiley face emojis were secret code for 'everything sucks, please send help'and if he’d made a horrible mistake to not think up a proper retort to that. He’d probably think of one later, most likely during a rare moment of restful sleep.

Such was life.

...so what was the emoji for ‘I’m fine, everything is fine, life is fine, nothing to see here’?

* * *

 

Different city, different day, different disaster; this time a five vehicle pile-up.

The side of a car had been hit, and the door now seemed welded to the wreckage but a woman was trapped inside so Steve pulled and tugged with everything in him, until bright dots danced before his eyes.

His brain felt a bit foggy, but not enough that he didn’t succeed in prying the car open.

“Oh, thank you,” he heard the grateful woman reply with a voice wrecked by sobs. And he distantly though, _‘well that’s good, there’s one less person in this country who isn’t afraid of the sight of me’_ , before he turned to see what else he could do.

Just the motion of twisting made of rush of dizziness nearly overtake him, but he only let that give him momentary pause . He’d worry about it later, right now, as it stood, there were other people who desperately needed help.

Steve was trying to lift a small car off of another small car when a strange blackness began to settle in, first around the edges of his vision, and then slowly filling in towards the center.

The world felt like it was spinning wildly out of control.

But before he lost himself entirely to oblivion he felt cool metal arms lift him up. And then a voice, _that_ _voice_ , the voice that was his constant companion these past few months, announced…

“You better be okay, Winghead, or I’m following you under just to kick your ass, which by the way, I might do anyway.”

* * *

 

Steve wasn’t sure what to expect when he woke up, but the sight of a framed picture of himself in full Cap regalia certainly wasn’t it.

“Not to cast aspersions on your home decorating, but Captain America isn’t really a good theme to go with these days,” Steve announced without looking at the presence seated next to his bed. Unable to look, really. He didn’t think he could take seeing disappointment shine through those beloved blue eyes.

“I use what inspires me, and Captain America will always be that,” his companion replied simply, and so earnestly it made Steve’s heart _squeeze_.

The voice in Steve’s head, the one that had kept Steve company these past months, really, truly had _nothing_ on the real thing. And recognition of that fact seemed to flip a switch inside of him.

Steve felt a sob well in his chest, to briefly catch in his throat. And he tried, and he tried, and _he tried so hard_ to keep it locked inside, but it escaped anyway - of course it did - and with it, any remaining shred of his dignity.

It was like a cork had been popped, and one sob became two, then three, then twenty, and the next thing he knew he was crying and shaking and wishing desperately for some hole he could crawl into and hide in indefinitely.

The man in the picture wasn’t weak. The man in the picture was meant to be strong. He’d been _made_ to be strong – a symbol - a morale booster - a beacon for a world torn by war. Steve wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever really been the man in the picture. Oh he’d put on a good show, to the best of his abilities, but being a symbol instead of a person was _just so hard_.

He felt the bed next to him dip. Felt a weight settle next to him and strong arms engulf him and a scent hit his nostrils that was so achingly familiar it made him want to roll around in it. It was the first thing Steve could _remember_ smelling in months.

Distantly he remembered it was also the first human touch he’d had in almost as long.

Tony didn’t ask him if he was okay, and god but Steve loved him for it. Instead Tony held him, and rubbed his back, and pressed small kisses into his hair.

So weird that this was the safest he felt since even prior to Pleasant Hill.

And then one moment of silence became two and slowly Steve felt his heart rate lessen to a more normal, sedate pace.

His brain was foggy, messy, but he was present enough to ask “how are you here?” even as he clutched desperately to Tony’s shirt, halfway frightened the other man would disappear through his fingers if he were to receive an honest answer. “And why are you… we haven’t ever… did you know I’ve wanted this?”

Steve closed his eyes tightly, more than halfway afraid to find out.

“How I’m here is a long story,” Tony breathed, nuzzling Steve’s hair with his nose, then nipping lightly at the tip of his ear with the lightest brush of teeth. “And it’s not important right now. As for the other thing, I never knew, before. I mean, I had always dreamed, but never dared hope…”

Steve opened his mouth to inform Tony that that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard, but before he could get a word out, Tony continued...

“But then while I was under, the imposter you, I heard things he said while I was… under…well, that’s not important either. But here’s the thing, Steve… I can’t sit by and watch you break to pieces without getting to touch you. I can’t do it. And I’ve _missed_ you, so I really just had to hold you. So if you’d be so inclined and seeing as you don’t have a choice, really, just... for now just shut up and take the cuddle, damnit. We’ll talk it out later.”

Steve felt laughter bubble up all the way from his gut, and with it something sprang to life inside him. It was amazing what the faith of just one person could mean to a man.

“But I have to save the world,” he said while hiding his face in Tony’s neck, more for the sake of arguing than any desire to move… reputation as a stubborn bastard and all that.

He felt Tony smile against his head.

“And _we_ will,” Tony replied, petting his hair, grabbing a fist full of it and tugging lightly during the ‘we’ part of that proclamation for added emphasis. “But first, let’s get you back up to speed. I have it on good authority that a healthy body is the first line of defense.”

Steve smiled, opening his eyes and turning his head up to meet Tony’s gaze for the first time since waking.

Lord what a beautiful view.

“Yeah, Tony, I know.”

 

The End!

**Author's Note:**

> Waid mentioned that Steve would be on his own for his upcoming run, which will feature Steve traveling America trying to figure out what America needs Captain America to be and will also be Steve looking for a home and trying to establish roots as he's 'tired of being a couch surfer'. Tony gave Steve a home once, I figured he'd be more than willing to do it again.
> 
> Honestly this fic was born out of the idea that Steve facing the fall-out of Secret Empire by himself was too heartbreaking to contemplate. I mean, I doubt the comics will deal with the PTSD and depression that would result from Steve having to grapple what an evil doppelganger wearing his face had done in his absence and the fallout of that, but that doesn't stop me from doing it. 
> 
> Huge shout out to R for the beta, you rock and I'm very appreciative.


End file.
